Traditional simulated training environments for military applications, such as multiple integrated laser engagement system (MILES), typically used analog radios communicating in Very High Frequency (VHF) and/or Ultra High Frequency (UHF) frequency bands for voice and data communication. Operational communication networks traditionally used similar technology. These traditional technologies were very bandwidth limited, on the order of tens of kbps, thereby heavily restricting what type of data was communicated in operational and training environments.
For example, in a MILES training environment with 1000 soldiers, the communication network used by the training environment may have been only able to handle providing location updates for each soldier every 20 seconds or so. This scarceness of information can be detrimental to modern-day training environments—and certainly modern-day operational applications—in which there may be a large number of entities interacting or communicating.